October 7, 2005

Picnic at Hanging Rock

One of the amazing Australian director Peter Weir's first
films, Picnic at Hanging
Rock, is an evocative, lyrical, and mysterious foray into the
unknown, during a hot summer's day picnic for the girls of Appleyard's
Academy for Girls, at the foreboding and primitive place called Hanging
Rock. No, this isn't a western, featuring a lynch mob, but rather a
beatifully filmed, hauntingly scored movie about repressed sexuality,
strange happenings, and, uncomfortably enough for some people, no
easy answers.

The movie opens with the girls of the Academy, all around high
school age, reading romantic poetry to each other. Shot in soft focus,
from oblique angles, the real world seems far away. It is Saint
Valentine's Day and the annual picnic to the huge rock outcropping
called Hanging Rock is today, and everyone is excited. Being Down
Under, it is the middle of the summer, and the heat and lethargy are
perfectly captured for the viewer as the carriage heads out. While
there, four of the girls take a forbidden walk into the Rock, but only
one comes back. Also missing is one of the teachers. A search is
quickly mounted, while the negative repercussions on the school's
image have their deletorious effect. A week later, one of the girls is
discovered by a boy who had seen them disappear and is wracked by
nightmares about them. The discovered girl is in remarkably good
condition and is still, in the vernacular used in the movie,
"intact".

You know this movie isn't about answers when, in the opening splash
scene, you are given a complete synopsis of what is to come. And if
you need neat answers to questions posed in a movie, this won't be a
movie for you, because Weir doesn't give you any. There are perhaps
clues as to what went on, but they point in many different
directions. This is a movie about atmosphere and repressed primitive
carnal longings, not about solving a mystery. Which, by the way, is
not basedd on a true story, despite what is said on IMDB and
the implications at the beginning of the movie. It is based on a
novel, although I have to admit after I first saw this movie, many
years ago, I did spend some time at the Boston Public Library
searching the archives for mention of it, as in one place,
Ms. Appleyard says it is being reported in newspapers worldwide!

This is a movie that absolutely positively requires complete
attention. It is better seen in a dark, quiet movie theater, but if
you have to watch it at home on this beautiful, sharp, DVD, be sure to
unplug the phone and turn off the lights. Let the incredible music,
both classical and Zamfir's Pan Flute, wash over you. Feel the
heat, hear the cicadas, sense the emotions and wonder about the
motives. Then, I think, you'll begin to have an idea of where Peter
Weir wants you to go.

This is the movie that started me on my love of all things
Australian, including a trio of contemporary directors in Weir, Fred Schepisi, and
Bruce
Beresford. This love culminated in a 3 1/2 week trip Down Under,
that remains among my most cherished memories. Unfortunately, despite
staying in Melbourne an extra day, we never made it to Hanging Rock,
at a park just north of Melbourne. A movie that needs to be seen and
felt at a visceral level, Picnic at Hanging Rock won't
disappoint.